‘Fan #1’ is album #4 for Spanish indiepoppers The Yellow Melodies. Spain’s hardly celebrated for its indiepop bands has to be said, but they’re clearly doing something right to be sustaining themselves, and they’ve scored a fair few respectable support slots, too.
A swirling organ prefaces a jangling guitar and motorik beat on ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and – wait, it is a cover. Already I’m uncomfortable. I’d been scanning the tack listing and amidst the Spanish-language titles had already clocked ‘Sheena is a Punk Rocker’ and ‘Manic Monday’. Then the penny drops: it’s a covers album. The band are the fans paying tribute to... their influences? I’m pretty well versed, but can’t place all of the songs and even if I could, a lack of familiarity with ‘Legata a un granello di sabbia’ and Comet Gain’s ‘You Can Hide Your Love Forever’ preclude me from making reasoned critical appraisals of the versions here.
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I'm still not sure if the album’s premise justifies a trippy rendition of The Polyphonic Spree’s ‘Soldier Girl’, and the sappy rendition of ‘Sheena’ just doesn’t justify it existence. ‘Manic Monday’ is beyond pointless, and the album’s closed with a dirgy and insipid 7-minute version of ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’. I only wish I did, but after listening to this I feel vaguely nauseous.
The Yellow Melodies Online
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